Sabine Hossenfelder’s recent^{[not super recent]} political video just feels wrong to me even if all the facts are right. Here is why.

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Recently, a good friend, who spent his PhD and some postdoc time in Germany, mentioned that he was shocked about the state of affairs in Germany after watching Sabine Hossenfelder’s youtube video entitled “Why I’m embarrassed to be German”. So, I thought I give it a try, and ended up embarrassed about Sabine Hossenfelder.

If you don’t want to watch the video, its content can be summarized as:

• The internet is bad in Germany.
• The railway sucks.

And yes, in my opinion it’s pretty true what she says. Living in Spain I can confirm that Internet (both fiber and mobile data) works much better here. And yes, it is embarrassing to say it, but I never took a high speed train in Spain that was delayed.

So, if it is true what Sabine says, why am I embarrassed about her?

Things to be embarrassed about in Germany

When I started to study with 19, I moved from a village close to Berlin to Berlin city.

One of the first experiences that I found embarrassing was how to deal with beggars and homeless people on the street, but that’s not even the crucial point I want to make. The really embarrassing point was that those people became more every year. And all this in one of the richest countries of the world, celebrating itself as the “export world champion”.

Another thing I found embarrassing after a few years was to see the increase in rental prices. When I moved to Berlin in 2007, I found a normal room (with shared bathroom and kitchen) in the student dormitory “Siegmunds Hof”, which is within walking distance to the Technical University where I studied, for 120€. I repeat: one hundred and twenty Euro! Now, a quick search reveals that the same rooms are between 322 and 432€. And by the way, you have to wait for 18 months to get one.

I could continue with many things, for instance, the food in the Mensa increased during my ≈ 10 years at the TU Berlin by almost a factor 2. Back at that time, I had the luck that my salary also had sharp jumps (no salary as a bachelor, then student assistant during the master, then PhD, and finally one year of postdoc). But the sad truth is: for most people the salary did not increase by a factor 3 since 2007 to compensate for the higher prices.

Back to Sabine’s problems…

Did any of the above things bother Sabine Hossenfelder? Did she mention with a single word the increasing amount of poverty? No, she didn’t! And even mainstream economists realized by now that there is something seriously wrong with the distribution of wealth in our society. Did she mention that the rental-prizes-to-salary ratio is skyrocketing? No… But at least she complained about the railway, so probably she mentioned that traveling with the high speed train becomes unaffordable for the average family in Germany? Yes?… No, unfortunately, she didn’t.

What Sabine Hossenfelder is complaining about are the problems of the upper 1% class in Germany: the internet is too slow. And in a video from half a year ago she tries to convince us that “capitalism is good”. And less than a year ago she realized that now it is time to get worried about climate change. Congratulations!

Conclusion

Did I write this post to bash Sabine Hossenfelder? Yes, I did, but I think she is also doing already a good job to bash herself. But the sad truth—the truly sad truth—is that this post is not about Sabine Hossenfelder: I met many accomplished scientists who could fit the description above.

How can it be that an acclaimed theoretical physicist, and one of the most critical minds in modern physics, is so uncritical and streamlined about politics and society? Whatever the answer is—the point I want to make is: if Sabine had identified the core problems of Germany, we would live in heaven. Unfortunately, people don’t vote AFD because the internet is slow…